This link is for all of you youngsters whom might have not even been born before StumbleUpon underwent enshittification circa 2011, when they introduced paid-advertising stumbles and ruined the...
This link is for all of you youngsters whom might have not even been born before StumbleUpon underwent enshittification circa 2011, when they introduced paid-advertising stumbles and ruined the whole thing.
It's a great way to see giant swaths of the web that search engines won't normally send you to. A lot of it is reminiscent of what the web was like in the early 00's. More text, less ads. Many blogs have RSS feeds still, which are just great.
Discover new things and post interesting ones to Tildes!
It's really good, and it's truly indie. Unlike Kagi which is trying to be a big company, Marginalia is just one guy doing something to help the web he loves. Really inspiring stuff.
It's really good, and it's truly indie. Unlike Kagi which is trying to be a big company, Marginalia is just one guy doing something to help the web he loves. Really inspiring stuff.
Since we are recommending indie search engines now, also check out Mwmbl. You can actually help curate search results and submit new domains to crawl. It still has ways to go before it's truly...
Since we are recommending indie search engines now, also check out Mwmbl. You can actually help curate search results and submit new domains to crawl. It still has ways to go before it's truly good for everyday use imo, but I think the collaborative aspect is a nice touch.
I keep seeing praise and references to Kagi on various forums across the internet, like an ai bot farm is having fun doing cheap marketing. I just don't get it as a product. Why would I pay for...
I keep seeing praise and references to Kagi on various forums across the internet, like an ai bot farm is having fun doing cheap marketing. I just don't get it as a product. Why would I pay for this service when I can just host my own searx instance, or use one of the hundreds available online? What is there moat in the tech industry? It seems they mainly target people who prefer to pay for a centralized service hoping that will keep it alive, for the non-tech crowd that may make some sense, but it is such a small sliver of the market.
Marginalia does a much better job at smallweb, and as far as I am aware Kagi is not profitable. And then there is the whole Yandex / Russia ties to Kagi that make it highly questionable as a platform. I won't be touching it with a ten foot pole personally.
Here's my personal take, roughly in order of priority, as someone just now really using it with the generous trial thread: Paying for lack of ads means better search results. You're not seeing the...
Exemplary
Here's my personal take, roughly in order of priority, as someone just now really using it with the generous trial thread:
Paying for lack of ads means better search results. You're not seeing the highest bidder, you're seeing the best search result.
You can use proper searching methods. Like searching verbatim and not "whatever we feel like adapting your query into behind the scenes". Seriously check out the feature list and tell me it's not exponentially better than any other major player.
Being able to make different clusters of sites via Lenses is a huge feature to eliminate erroneous results. I'm probably going to upgrade to the family plan so that I can make use of parental controls for search, to whitelist quality info for my < 10 kids.
One small but great feature I just noticed: When I'm doing product search reviews, it condenses all of those "Top 10 X of 2024" results into a section called "listicles." This pleases me.
They attained profitability in May. Also in that blog post, they explain the nature of their Public Benefit Corporation, which gives me more fuzzies than typical corps.
Regarding Russia:
There are 3 big indexers in the world: Google, Microsoft, Yandex. Everyone else is backed primarily from one of those, because having a huge index is paramount to finding good results. So, if you don't like Google or Microsoft, your only other significant option is Yandex. Here's Kagi's response, and frankly: I'd rather support a Russian-owned index than further entrenching Google/Microsoft. Especially since it appears Yandex is fighting with the Russian government rather than supporting it. As always, there is more nuance to the situation than most internet outrage machines will pay attention to. Somewhat tangentially, the hate at Kaspersky is similarly overblown, and I'd suggest reading their wikipedia page, and see just how much they've contributed to solving major security issues.... like identifying supply chain attacks against PyPi. They seem to very much dislike that the Russian government is doing what they do, as much as they hate the NSA doing the same.
There are concerns there, but no more than any country should be concerned about using American software products either.... at least if security and privacy are paramount.
Yup, it's a stretch to call Yandex Pro-Russian. Under Russian hegemony, yeah. But that's not worse than US-Hegemony Google.
In June 2023, Yandex was fined 2 million roubles by a Moscow court for its repeated refusal to share user information with the Federal Security Service.[184][185]
Yup, it's a stretch to call Yandex Pro-Russian. Under Russian hegemony, yeah. But that's not worse than US-Hegemony Google.
It might be relevant to keep in mind though that there was a fairly major change in the ownership of the company earlier this year. It's now fully Russian owned, and possibly much closer to...
It might be relevant to keep in mind though that there was a fairly major change in the ownership of the company earlier this year. It's now fully Russian owned, and possibly much closer to Kremlin than it used to be.
This os a wrong assumption. Hosting a Searx instance is an incredibly niche skill, and I don't want the hassle of hosting my own search engine Kagi is only real competitor to Google search that...
when I can just host my own searx instance
This os a wrong assumption. Hosting a Searx instance is an incredibly niche skill, and I don't want the hassle of hosting my own search engine
Kagi is only real competitor to Google search that we've had on the last... I would say 20 years. Bing isn't a valid competitor, neither is duckduckgo (bing based) or any other free search engine.
Kagi actually puts effort into being a usable search engine. Tell me of there's any other search engine where I can straight up block Pinterest.
The I here was referring to myself, who has these abilities, not I as in you. I assume that others don't because they can't, and instead prefer paying for a centralized service. I believe that...
when I can just host my own searx instance
The I here was referring to myself, who has these abilities, not I as in you.
I assume that others don't because they can't, and instead prefer paying for a centralized service. I believe that those willing to pay for search engines are a niche group of individuals, and not something that will extend to the masses. Further they are constrained by their politics.
I assumed the "I" on your example was a general "I", since you mentioned you don't understand Kagi as a product, otherwise I assume you'd have just stated that Kagi is aimed at different audience.
I assumed the "I" on your example was a general "I", since you mentioned you don't understand Kagi as a product, otherwise I assume you'd have just stated that Kagi is aimed at different audience.
Actually, no. They utilize all major indices: Google's, Bing's, and Yandex'. This is in addition to developing their own index which is an ongoing effort.
Actually, no. They utilize all major indices: Google's, Bing's, and Yandex'. This is in addition to developing their own index which is an ongoing effort.
Regarding profitability, they announced that they reached that threshold back in may, as far as I'm aware they still are. Personally, one of my reasons to use it is the peace of mind of knowing...
Regarding profitability, they announced that they reached that threshold back in may, as far as I'm aware they still are. Personally, one of my reasons to use it is the peace of mind of knowing that paying for this service ensures that Kagi's goals are aligned with mine as its customer, rather than having a tool I use every day as my primary gateway to information on the Internet be subject to the whims of unknown actors. I'm hoping that Kagi's continued existence will show that this is a healthier approach to the relationship between a search engine and its user and that other companies will start adopting this model as an alternative to the runaway data siphon that Google has become.
For the record, nothing has changed re: Kagi and Russia. The CEO does nothing but make disingenuous equivalencies and lock conversations. They are still directly funding Russian propaganda.
For the record, nothing has changed re: Kagi and Russia. The CEO does nothing but make disingenuous equivalencies and lock conversations. They are still directly funding Russian propaganda.
Does sending 2% of their costs to Yandex count as directly funding Russian propaganda?? I am not pro-Russia, but I don't like the Bing/Google duopoly. Edit: u/ogre and u/tauon's calculations...
Does sending 2% of their costs to Yandex count as directly funding Russian propaganda?? I am not pro-Russia, but I don't like the Bing/Google duopoly.
Edit: u/ogre and u/tauon's calculations suggest they've sent Yandex maybe $250k total since 2019. That's not nothing, but I personally think it's insignificant.
In the grand scheme of things, I think those pennies are miniscule compared to where the spending for most of us goes indirectly. Russia is still exporting huge amounts of gas, likely powering...
In the grand scheme of things, I think those pennies are miniscule compared to where the spending for most of us goes indirectly. Russia is still exporting huge amounts of gas, likely powering factories making tons of stuff we buy.
Everyone is of course allowed to choose their own moral standing of which companies they want to buy from. I just personally think my $5 does more good here than the viable alternatives, and I wouldn't choose a few pennies that goes to Yandex to be the moral high horse to focus on compared to other things that involves more money.
Agreed, and all the alternatives either really suck, or indirectly (or directly) support other companies I hate too, so this is a compromise I'm going to make, as the product is so significantly...
Agreed, and all the alternatives either really suck, or indirectly (or directly) support other companies I hate too, so this is a compromise I'm going to make, as the product is so significantly good, and the amount that goes to Yandex insignificant enough that I'm not going to consider it a dealbreaker.
Like it or not, the 3rd biggest major index is Yandex, and it makes sense someone of that background and familiar with the service would consider using the index. Not saying it's a good thing either, but I honestly don't consider many of the alternative major index companies to be any better from an ethical point of view.
We can choose our battles in the ethical consumption nightmare that is our reality. Others may feel differently about this specific service and that is fine too.
Does directly sending their money to a company that spreads Russian propaganda count as directly funding Russian propaganda? IMO, yes. There are non-Google/Bing search engines that already exist.
Does directly sending their money to a company that spreads Russian propaganda count as directly funding Russian propaganda?
IMO, yes. There are non-Google/Bing search engines that already exist.
It should be noted that it is not just the Yandex thing that does make some people hesistant to use kagi. The CEO very much seems to have a specific view on the world and technology. See for...
It should be noted that it is not just the Yandex thing that does make some people hesistant to use kagi. The CEO very much seems to have a specific view on the world and technology. See for example this blog post: https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html
While there are many points in that blog post, some of which I even agree with, I would like to point out at least one thing that is definitively not correct, and it’s an important oversight when...
While there are many points in that blog post, some of which I even agree with, I would like to point out at least one thing that is definitively not correct, and it’s an important oversight when discussing the company’s mindset, IMO:
Like most search now Kagi has chosen to include Instant Answers that are AI generated, which means they're often wrong
Every single “AI” (LLM) feature Kagi has is optional. I kid you not, it is not only customizable (just like most everything else in their product), but off-by-default. You will not see AI content unless you ask for it.
For another example, by default, Kagi will try not to show AI-generated results, whether spam articles in site search or artificially drawn kittens in image search. (and TBH, they’re doing a pretty good job at that.)
This may seem like nitpicking, but I think it completely invalidates the author’s line of argument: Kagi is precisely not like other search engines, since you have choices you can make. Sure, you can produce the LLM result summary by clicking a button or appending ? to your query, but by default, the page doesn’t even seem to load JavaScript. Not comparable to Google’s unprompted, unasked for, and non-deactivatable “put glue on your pizza” type responses.
On that note, the "fire up the LLM to answer if you append a question mark to your search" behavior is itself an option that can be toggled on or off in your settings. The funny thing is that as...
On that note, the "fire up the LLM to answer if you append a question mark to your search" behavior is itself an option that can be toggled on or off in your settings. The funny thing is that as I'm not on the "Kagi Ultimate" plan where most of the AI features have been shunted off to, that makes this toggle the only option I have access to in the "AI" settings category.
That's a fair point, although I don't quite see how it invalidates everything the author writes about. To me that is quite the leap in logic as well. To be honest, it almost approaches the sort of...
That's a fair point, although I don't quite see how it invalidates everything the author writes about. To me that is quite the leap in logic as well.
To be honest, it almost approaches the sort of argument where under normal circumstances I would suspect bad faith. In this context I don't think that is the case, so this is more feedback. It seems somewhat like a straw man approach, where someone zeros in on one aspect, valid or not, to undermine the whole position. Instead of addressing the larger, more nuanced points made.
Again, I am not saying you are arguing in bad faith. I see the same also happen when people have some investment in the thing that is being addressed. I am not saying that people shouldn't use Kagi, it isn't a binary issue where the choice is easily made given the alternatives available. That doesn't mean the points in the article aren't invalid or invalidated because of one inconsistency in it either.
Thank you for remaining level-headed! In the end, we’ll now both leave with hopefully a better understanding of each other’s idea, instead of turning this into a shouting contest, like it probably...
Thank you for remaining level-headed! In the end, we’ll now both leave with hopefully a better understanding of each other’s idea, instead of turning this into a shouting contest, like it probably would have on other platforms…
I may have worded it poorly: by “whole line of argument” getting invalidated from that AI-as-optional-features knowledge, I meant just literally this one argument.
For example, I don’t agree with Kagi’s supposedly doomed financial future and irrational pricing scheme (it has seemed fairly stable and profitable for easily >half a year), but I do think the founder could, at times, be a little less “neutral at all costs” in his stances. And back when they’d first announced the introduction of sales tax/vat around a year ago, I also thought that was a bit strange (and sounded an awful lot like an excuse for them really just having neglected to collect it up until that point). I haven’t made up my mind yet regarding what to think about Kagi and privacy.
I see the same also happen when people have some investment in the thing that is being addressed.
Oh I’m absolutely biased – as a happy user – and not into trying to hide it. But it is good to hear out the other perspectives from time to time so as to not end up in a dream castle/bubble, so I appreciate you sharing that blog post in the first place.
The CEO is pretty mild as far as tech executives go. There are some very strong arguments supporting his position of neutrality and giving users the tools to shape their search experience.
The CEO is pretty mild as far as tech executives go. There are some very strong arguments supporting his position of neutrality and giving users the tools to shape their search experience.
I don't necessarily disagree with you but what Russia ties are you talking about? I hadn't heard that. Do you have any reading I can do on the subject?
I don't necessarily disagree with you but what Russia ties are you talking about? I hadn't heard that. Do you have any reading I can do on the subject?
I put search in the same bucket as email--I technically could probably self-host it, but I don't want to be responsible for maintaining and fixing it. I need both of them to be more reliable than...
I put search in the same bucket as email--I technically could probably self-host it, but I don't want to be responsible for maintaining and fixing it. I need both of them to be more reliable than I trust myself to manage. I'd rather pay someone and have it just work.
I used to run a SearXNG instance for personal use, but the backends stopped working and it needed to be updated or patched often enough (sometimes when I was out and searching something on my phone and couldn't do anything about it) that I got fed up. I also used to self-host my email, which was even more harrowing. Now I use Fastmail for email and Kagi for search and the fact that I'm paying actual money for them gives me at least a little peace of mind that they're not going to disappear or sell my data to Satan.
Fyi, you don't have to self host email to be less reliant on other parties. Just get a domain and then you can pick from a variety of solid mail providers to use. Mailbox, proton, fastmail or...
Fyi, you don't have to self host email to be less reliant on other parties. Just get a domain and then you can pick from a variety of solid mail providers to use. Mailbox, proton, fastmail or tutanota to name a few of the more well know ones. I personally use mailbox and am pretty happy with it.
SearXNG has gotten a lot better over the past year. Particularly, some work to allow boosting/blocking domains in the same vein of Kagi was merged. I haven't had any issues with reliability: when...
SearXNG has gotten a lot better over the past year. Particularly, some work to allow boosting/blocking domains in the same vein of Kagi was merged. I haven't had any issues with reliability: when one backend fails, the other backends still work fine, and I very rarely encounter any failures at all - though it should be noted I have never gone longer than ~ a month without updating it.
I haven't properly used SearXNG yet, my experience with it was, of all things, hooking it up to local LLMs I've been toying with so I could tell it to look up information on the Internet, and...
I haven't properly used SearXNG yet, my experience with it was, of all things, hooking it up to local LLMs I've been toying with so I could tell it to look up information on the Internet, and while checking if SearXNG itself worked it seemed like a pretty nice piece of software to use, both in performance and ease of use (whether the language model can use it effectively is another matter entirely lmao). Should Kagi not pan out in the long run it does seem to be an attractive option to avoid falling back to using Google or Bing and I'll definitely look into it further.
I think this is for those people who want to be able to have the internet as it was, but aren't tech-savvy enough to host their own servers or instances. I had no idea that it has ties to Russia,...
I think this is for those people who want to be able to have the internet as it was, but aren't tech-savvy enough to host their own servers or instances.
I had no idea that it has ties to Russia, that definitely makes me not want to touch it or give them any money. I wouldn't mind finding something like it that isn't tied to Russia or China, but easier said than done.
2% of their costs is paying for Yandex which is the 3rd major search index. I'm not sure that qualifies as ties to Russia, but they do business with a company from Russia. To me, that's fine. My...
2% of their costs is paying for Yandex which is the 3rd major search index. I'm not sure that qualifies as ties to Russia, but they do business with a company from Russia. To me, that's fine. My hate for ads and enshittification on Google is very high.
Thanks, this is good insight, along with everything else that's been posted since my comment. I appreciate the information and I'm enjoying learning a lot about what's going on with these...
Thanks, this is good insight, along with everything else that's been posted since my comment. I appreciate the information and I'm enjoying learning a lot about what's going on with these different search engines.
This link is for all of you youngsters whom might have not even been born before StumbleUpon underwent enshittification circa 2011, when they introduced paid-advertising stumbles and ruined the whole thing.
It's a great way to see giant swaths of the web that search engines won't normally send you to. A lot of it is reminiscent of what the web was like in the early 00's. More text, less ads. Many blogs have RSS feeds still, which are just great.
Discover new things and post interesting ones to Tildes!
I was confused until I read your comment.
Kagi Small Web = old school StumbleUpon
Now I understand.
I loved stumbleupon. Stopped using it after it went to shit. I'll need to check this out
There's also Marginalia's random page: https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random
Never knew about Marginalia until now… thank you.
It's really good, and it's truly indie. Unlike Kagi which is trying to be a big company, Marginalia is just one guy doing something to help the web he loves. Really inspiring stuff.
Wiby is also fun.
Since we are recommending indie search engines now, also check out Mwmbl. You can actually help curate search results and submit new domains to crawl. It still has ways to go before it's truly good for everyday use imo, but I think the collaborative aspect is a nice touch.
I keep seeing praise and references to Kagi on various forums across the internet, like an ai bot farm is having fun doing cheap marketing. I just don't get it as a product. Why would I pay for this service when I can just host my own searx instance, or use one of the hundreds available online? What is there moat in the tech industry? It seems they mainly target people who prefer to pay for a centralized service hoping that will keep it alive, for the non-tech crowd that may make some sense, but it is such a small sliver of the market.
Marginalia does a much better job at smallweb, and as far as I am aware Kagi is not profitable. And then there is the whole Yandex / Russia ties to Kagi that make it highly questionable as a platform. I won't be touching it with a ten foot pole personally.
Here's my personal take, roughly in order of priority, as someone just now really using it with the generous trial thread:
Regarding Russia:
There are 3 big indexers in the world: Google, Microsoft, Yandex. Everyone else is backed primarily from one of those, because having a huge index is paramount to finding good results. So, if you don't like Google or Microsoft, your only other significant option is Yandex. Here's Kagi's response, and frankly: I'd rather support a Russian-owned index than further entrenching Google/Microsoft. Especially since it appears Yandex is fighting with the Russian government rather than supporting it. As always, there is more nuance to the situation than most internet outrage machines will pay attention to. Somewhat tangentially, the hate at Kaspersky is similarly overblown, and I'd suggest reading their wikipedia page, and see just how much they've contributed to solving major security issues.... like identifying supply chain attacks against PyPi. They seem to very much dislike that the Russian government is doing what they do, as much as they hate the NSA doing the same.
There are concerns there, but no more than any country should be concerned about using American software products either.... at least if security and privacy are paramount.
Yup, it's a stretch to call Yandex Pro-Russian. Under Russian hegemony, yeah. But that's not worse than US-Hegemony Google.
It might be relevant to keep in mind though that there was a fairly major change in the ownership of the company earlier this year. It's now fully Russian owned, and possibly much closer to Kremlin than it used to be.
This os a wrong assumption. Hosting a Searx instance is an incredibly niche skill, and I don't want the hassle of hosting my own search engine
Kagi is only real competitor to Google search that we've had on the last... I would say 20 years. Bing isn't a valid competitor, neither is duckduckgo (bing based) or any other free search engine.
Kagi actually puts effort into being a usable search engine. Tell me of there's any other search engine where I can straight up block Pinterest.
The I here was referring to myself, who has these abilities, not I as in you.
I assume that others don't because they can't, and instead prefer paying for a centralized service. I believe that those willing to pay for search engines are a niche group of individuals, and not something that will extend to the masses. Further they are constrained by their politics.
I assumed the "I" on your example was a general "I", since you mentioned you don't understand Kagi as a product, otherwise I assume you'd have just stated that Kagi is aimed at different audience.
aren’t they just a better front end to google’s database?
Actually, no. They utilize all major indices: Google's, Bing's, and Yandex'. This is in addition to developing their own index which is an ongoing effort.
Regarding profitability, they announced that they reached that threshold back in may, as far as I'm aware they still are. Personally, one of my reasons to use it is the peace of mind of knowing that paying for this service ensures that Kagi's goals are aligned with mine as its customer, rather than having a tool I use every day as my primary gateway to information on the Internet be subject to the whims of unknown actors. I'm hoping that Kagi's continued existence will show that this is a healthier approach to the relationship between a search engine and its user and that other companies will start adopting this model as an alternative to the runaway data siphon that Google has become.
For the record, nothing has changed re: Kagi and Russia. The CEO does nothing but make disingenuous equivalencies and lock conversations. They are still directly funding Russian propaganda.
Does sending 2% of their costs to Yandex count as directly funding Russian propaganda?? I am not pro-Russia, but I don't like the Bing/Google duopoly.
Edit: u/ogre and u/tauon's calculations suggest they've sent Yandex maybe $250k total since 2019. That's not nothing, but I personally think it's insignificant.
In the grand scheme of things, I think those pennies are miniscule compared to where the spending for most of us goes indirectly. Russia is still exporting huge amounts of gas, likely powering factories making tons of stuff we buy.
Everyone is of course allowed to choose their own moral standing of which companies they want to buy from. I just personally think my $5 does more good here than the viable alternatives, and I wouldn't choose a few pennies that goes to Yandex to be the moral high horse to focus on compared to other things that involves more money.
Agreed, and all the alternatives either really suck, or indirectly (or directly) support other companies I hate too, so this is a compromise I'm going to make, as the product is so significantly good, and the amount that goes to Yandex insignificant enough that I'm not going to consider it a dealbreaker.
Like it or not, the 3rd biggest major index is Yandex, and it makes sense someone of that background and familiar with the service would consider using the index. Not saying it's a good thing either, but I honestly don't consider many of the alternative major index companies to be any better from an ethical point of view.
We can choose our battles in the ethical consumption nightmare that is our reality. Others may feel differently about this specific service and that is fine too.
Does directly sending their money to a company that spreads Russian propaganda count as directly funding Russian propaganda?
IMO, yes. There are non-Google/Bing search engines that already exist.
It should be noted that it is not just the Yandex thing that does make some people hesistant to use kagi. The CEO very much seems to have a specific view on the world and technology. See for example this blog post: https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html
While there are many points in that blog post, some of which I even agree with, I would like to point out at least one thing that is definitively not correct, and it’s an important oversight when discussing the company’s mindset, IMO:
Every single “AI” (LLM) feature Kagi has is optional. I kid you not, it is not only customizable (just like most everything else in their product), but off-by-default. You will not see AI content unless you ask for it.
For another example, by default, Kagi will try not to show AI-generated results, whether spam articles in site search or artificially drawn kittens in image search. (and TBH, they’re doing a pretty good job at that.)
This may seem like nitpicking, but I think it completely invalidates the author’s line of argument: Kagi is precisely not like other search engines, since you have choices you can make. Sure, you can produce the LLM result summary by clicking a button or appending
?to your query, but by default, the page doesn’t even seem to load JavaScript. Not comparable to Google’s unprompted, unasked for, and non-deactivatable “put glue on your pizza” type responses.On that note, the "fire up the LLM to answer if you append a question mark to your search" behavior is itself an option that can be toggled on or off in your settings. The funny thing is that as I'm not on the "Kagi Ultimate" plan where most of the AI features have been shunted off to, that makes this toggle the only option I have access to in the "AI" settings category.
Wow, I didn’t even know about that option, but it makes sense. This does confirm me in my take quite a bit, haha.
That's a fair point, although I don't quite see how it invalidates everything the author writes about. To me that is quite the leap in logic as well.
To be honest, it almost approaches the sort of argument where under normal circumstances I would suspect bad faith. In this context I don't think that is the case, so this is more feedback. It seems somewhat like a straw man approach, where someone zeros in on one aspect, valid or not, to undermine the whole position. Instead of addressing the larger, more nuanced points made.
Again, I am not saying you are arguing in bad faith. I see the same also happen when people have some investment in the thing that is being addressed. I am not saying that people shouldn't use Kagi, it isn't a binary issue where the choice is easily made given the alternatives available. That doesn't mean the points in the article aren't invalid or invalidated because of one inconsistency in it either.
Thank you for remaining level-headed! In the end, we’ll now both leave with hopefully a better understanding of each other’s idea, instead of turning this into a shouting contest, like it probably would have on other platforms…
I may have worded it poorly: by “whole line of argument” getting invalidated from that AI-as-optional-features knowledge, I meant just literally this one argument.
For example, I don’t agree with Kagi’s supposedly doomed financial future and irrational pricing scheme (it has seemed fairly stable and profitable for easily >half a year), but I do think the founder could, at times, be a little less “neutral at all costs” in his stances. And back when they’d first announced the introduction of sales tax/vat around a year ago, I also thought that was a bit strange (and sounded an awful lot like an excuse for them really just having neglected to collect it up until that point). I haven’t made up my mind yet regarding what to think about Kagi and privacy.
Oh I’m absolutely biased – as a happy user – and not into trying to hide it. But it is good to hear out the other perspectives from time to time so as to not end up in a dream castle/bubble, so I appreciate you sharing that blog post in the first place.
The CEO is pretty mild as far as tech executives go. There are some very strong arguments supporting his position of neutrality and giving users the tools to shape their search experience.
You are entitled to your opinion. I think the blog post is valuable context for others to form their own.
The recent discussion can give you some pointers on reasons.
Thanks I haven't seen this thread before, very insightful!
I don't necessarily disagree with you but what Russia ties are you talking about? I hadn't heard that. Do you have any reading I can do on the subject?
There was some discussion about it on Tildes about a month ago, there's many thoughts and links stashed away there.
I put search in the same bucket as email--I technically could probably self-host it, but I don't want to be responsible for maintaining and fixing it. I need both of them to be more reliable than I trust myself to manage. I'd rather pay someone and have it just work.
I used to run a SearXNG instance for personal use, but the backends stopped working and it needed to be updated or patched often enough (sometimes when I was out and searching something on my phone and couldn't do anything about it) that I got fed up. I also used to self-host my email, which was even more harrowing. Now I use Fastmail for email and Kagi for search and the fact that I'm paying actual money for them gives me at least a little peace of mind that they're not going to disappear or sell my data to Satan.
Fyi, you don't have to self host email to be less reliant on other parties. Just get a domain and then you can pick from a variety of solid mail providers to use. Mailbox, proton, fastmail or tutanota to name a few of the more well know ones. I personally use mailbox and am pretty happy with it.
Seconded on Mailbox + custom domain setup, I've been using it for a little while and it's been working out pretty well.
SearXNG has gotten a lot better over the past year. Particularly, some work to allow boosting/blocking domains in the same vein of Kagi was merged. I haven't had any issues with reliability: when one backend fails, the other backends still work fine, and I very rarely encounter any failures at all - though it should be noted I have never gone longer than ~ a month without updating it.
I haven't properly used SearXNG yet, my experience with it was, of all things, hooking it up to local LLMs I've been toying with so I could tell it to look up information on the Internet, and while checking if SearXNG itself worked it seemed like a pretty nice piece of software to use, both in performance and ease of use (whether the language model can use it effectively is another matter entirely lmao). Should Kagi not pan out in the long run it does seem to be an attractive option to avoid falling back to using Google or Bing and I'll definitely look into it further.
I think this is for those people who want to be able to have the internet as it was, but aren't tech-savvy enough to host their own servers or instances.
I had no idea that it has ties to Russia, that definitely makes me not want to touch it or give them any money. I wouldn't mind finding something like it that isn't tied to Russia or China, but easier said than done.
2% of their costs is paying for Yandex which is the 3rd major search index. I'm not sure that qualifies as ties to Russia, but they do business with a company from Russia. To me, that's fine. My hate for ads and enshittification on Google is very high.
Tildes discussion here: https://tildes.net/~tech/1k71/should_i_stop_using_kagi_because_they_do_business_with_yandex#comment-e61h
Thanks, this is good insight, along with everything else that's been posted since my comment. I appreciate the information and I'm enjoying learning a lot about what's going on with these different search engines.
I don’t pay for privacy, as you said there are other options that provide it for cheaper. I pay because the search results are better.